The recycling of cans, bottles, paper, plastic, cardboard and other items has steadily increased over the past 20 to 30 years. Many states encourage the recycling of such items, particularly beverage containers, by requiring the consumer to pay a container deposit at the time of purchase. These deposits are returned to the consumer when the container is returned to a redemption center. Some states require the recycling of such items by law without the incentive provided by the container deposit system in force in many states.
It is a reasonable proposition that the bulk of items sold in so called returnable containers are sold to consumers for use in the home. It has become common place for members of households to collect, separate, count and return these returnable containers to receive the return of the deposit paid at purchase. Common methods of carrying out this task include providing separate receptacles for cans, plastic bottles, and glass bottles. Sometimes separate receptacles are even provided for glass bottles according to the color of the glass: green, brown or clear, for example. It is also reasonable to suppose that most persons do not derive pleasure from performing this often time consuming task; most view it as their duty to help preserve the environment or as a means of cutting costs by receiving the return of the container deposit or both. When returnable containers are brought to redemption centers, it is often the responsibility of the consumer to know the quantity of items being returned. Even in those instances where this is not the case, such as when returnables are deposited into centrally located machines which receive, count, and compress the returnable containers, and then release the corresponding amount of money to the consumer, most persons tend to count their returnables before making the trip to redeem their containers.
There are no known devices for use in the home for assisting consumers with the mundane task of counting accumulated returnables.
The instant invention provides an apparatus which registers, tallies, and displays the total number of returnables entered into a receptacle for redemption and thereby eliminates the need of consumers to do so manually. For the purpose of this specification and the claims, all items such as cans, bottles, and other containers which this device is intended to count are referred to collectively as "returnables."